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Ah, Silicon Valley “helps” humanity again. I don’t want to make a short flippant comment but that’s all there is to say. It’s just shown to be the same old sh

Ah, Silicon Valley “helps” humanity again. I don’t want to make a short flippant comment but that’s all there is to say. It’s just shown to be the same old shell game of move money from point A to point B, which is always VC and founders pockets. The engine for the movement being fake innovation and disruption. The 2000s brought real tech innovation and disruption and the 2010s was just mostly fumes and hop-ons enabled by almost infinite cheap money. I don’t say this to be negative. I say it because I know that people that can change this read HN. Your job and choices matter. Make the 2020s a decade of humanity getting better. Increasing congestion in cities, increasing environmental pollution, and increasing rides to higher income portions of the city wasn’t it.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
The disruption is real, it's just that the thing being disrupted is almost always labor or consumer regulations.
scarface74 4y ago
I am not sure how price sensitive Uber riders are. But I use Uber exclusively and I would be willing to pay more if that’s what it took for it to be a viable ongoing concern and pay the drivers more. I spoke to a few Uber drivers and a few have told me how much they make for a ride and I tell them how much I was charged. The discrepancy is ridiculous. I have no idea why Uber is losing so much money.
- ghaff 4y ago
  The prices have drifted up to the point where there's often not much of a difference between taxis and Uber/Lyft. Uber can even be more. But, yeah, I never really understood why the Uber strategy forced them to undercut taxis by so much when they were often a better service--especially after it became obvious to just about anyone that large-scale autonomous driving in the dense cities where the economics work best was at least a ways off.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    There’s benefit to getting regular people to regularly use Uber. To do that, it can’t be a premium-priced product (such as a taxi fare is). Uber gets big fast if rides are perceived as low-friction and low-cost. You’ll experience that once and do it again and tell your friends. If it’s “eh, a little better than a taxi”, there’s much less word of mouth excitement.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      But if you can't maintain that lower pricing (as they haven't been able to) there's little reason to tease a luxury product at a loss to people who can't afford it once you yank the subsidies.
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        If it helps you quickly reach one or both of the following, it could still be worth it: A vibrant two-sided network. You need riders for drivers and drivers for riders. Subsidizing one or the other side at various times might be needed. Word of mouth (and media coverage) to reach all the riders who can afford it and get them to try it. There’s no way I’d rely on cabs to commute to work. I’ve shared several Ubers with people who use it to commute to/from work.
        scarface74 4y ago
        How has growth hacking worked for any tech company since Facebook over a decade ago? By “working” I mean les to a sustainable profitable tech businsss?
        sokoloff 4y ago
        AirBnB?
pm90 4y ago
Taxi service before Ridesharing were pretty atrocious, outside of maybe NYC. I think just destroying the cab cartels was a good enough benefit. As far as transit goes: I suspect this is a more complex question. Transit needs to be planned and built intelligently, and the service needs to be reliable and safe. Most transit systems are not this. Once people have a bad experience on transit, they will immediately look for alternate options, and forever consider transit to be unsafe, ignoring the fact that more people die in vehicular accidents than in transit.
- xenospn 4y ago
  The answer is probably better Taxi industry regulation. I remember having to find a Taxi in Los Angeles before Uber, and it was impossible. Surely there is a way to ensure taxis provide a better service without destroying the entire industry.
  - kortilla 4y ago
    Oh of course. There are just so many examples where putting more regulations on a failed industry caused a bunch of innovation that fixed the fundamental lack of competition that would drive innovation.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

The disruption is real, it's just that the thing being disrupted is almost always labor or consumer regulations.

scarface74 4y ago

I am not sure how price sensitive Uber riders are. But I use Uber exclusively and I would be willing to pay more if that’s what it took for it to be a viable ongoing concern and pay the drivers more. I spoke to a few Uber drivers and a few have told me how much they make for a ride and I tell them how much I was charged. The discrepancy is ridiculous. I have no idea why Uber is losing so much money.

ghaff 4y ago
The prices have drifted up to the point where there's often not much of a difference between taxis and Uber/Lyft. Uber can even be more. But, yeah, I never really understood why the Uber strategy forced them to undercut taxis by so much when they were often a better service--especially after it became obvious to just about anyone that large-scale autonomous driving in the dense cities where the economics work best was at least a ways off.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  There’s benefit to getting regular people to regularly use Uber. To do that, it can’t be a premium-priced product (such as a taxi fare is). Uber gets big fast if rides are perceived as low-friction and low-cost. You’ll experience that once and do it again and tell your friends. If it’s “eh, a little better than a taxi”, there’s much less word of mouth excitement.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    But if you can't maintain that lower pricing (as they haven't been able to) there's little reason to tease a luxury product at a loss to people who can't afford it once you yank the subsidies.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      If it helps you quickly reach one or both of the following, it could still be worth it: A vibrant two-sided network. You need riders for drivers and drivers for riders. Subsidizing one or the other side at various times might be needed. Word of mouth (and media coverage) to reach all the riders who can afford it and get them to try it. There’s no way I’d rely on cabs to commute to work. I’ve shared several Ubers with people who use it to commute to/from work.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        How has growth hacking worked for any tech company since Facebook over a decade ago? By “working” I mean les to a sustainable profitable tech businsss?
        sokoloff 4y ago
        AirBnB?

pm90 4y ago

Taxi service before Ridesharing were pretty atrocious, outside of maybe NYC. I think just destroying the cab cartels was a good enough benefit. As far as transit goes: I suspect this is a more complex question. Transit needs to be planned and built intelligently, and the service needs to be reliable and safe. Most transit systems are not this. Once people have a bad experience on transit, they will immediately look for alternate options, and forever consider transit to be unsafe, ignoring the fact that more people die in vehicular accidents than in transit.

xenospn 4y ago
The answer is probably better Taxi industry regulation. I remember having to find a Taxi in Los Angeles before Uber, and it was impossible. Surely there is a way to ensure taxis provide a better service without destroying the entire industry.
- kortilla 4y ago
  Oh of course. There are just so many examples where putting more regulations on a failed industry caused a bunch of innovation that fixed the fundamental lack of competition that would drive innovation.